muskrat sets

[deerslayer15]

My neighbor has a huge pond and says it is invested with muskrats. He wants me to start trapping them. I have never trapped anything beside rabbits. Can anyone tell me there favorite sets for musk rats and tell me how to set them.

He say that the best set he ever used was by putting a leg hold trap on the bottom of the water right rear the animals hole. Then he said to take a small stick and run it through the rap, in between the claws, and cut off about 3 inches above the water. Then you take a apple slice and put it on the end of the stick. He said when the rat goes to eat the apple he will set his feet on the bottom and he's caught. Is this a good set or is there better one's.

[jim-NE]

I prefer #110s, in the "runs" that lead to these holes. A couple of finger-diameter sticks crossed slightly above the trap and angling down and wedged through each corner of the trap, between the jaws, helps stabilize it until the rat is well enough into the trap to fire it. Shove those sticks into the muck on each side.
I get a nice mink now and then in these same sets. Rats in #110s have zero damage, too.
Jim-NE